Sect Leader Directed His Beating, Boy Testifies

During more than five hours of testimony Thursday, a 15-year-old boy accused evangelist and sect leader Tony Alamo of directing his beating at the sect’s Saugus commune in 1988, while about 40 Alamo followers looked on.

Jeremiah Justin Miller, testifying in Newhall Municipal Court during a preliminary hearing, said he was hit on the buttocks at least 140 times with a wooden paddle, leaving him bleeding and bandaged for more than a week.

Alamo, who faces charges of felony child abuse, is accused of directing Miller’s beating over a speaker phone from his house. Alamo’s attorney, Danny Davis, painted a picture of an unruly child who needed discipline and whose memories were exaggerated after he was coached by his adopted father.